Monday, July 20, 2015

The GOP's Donald Trump Problem

It took some doing, but they found someone less photogenic thanTed Cruz and Chris Christie. Image from source, Washington Post

Donald Trump is not a serious candidate. Regardless of how he's polling, or how much support he's getting from the loud and frothy, he's not. He's a terrible extemporaneous speaker, has a limited vocabulary (particularly when fired up), has no filter, and is a transparent bullshit artist. "He's a truth teller! He tells it like it is!" is a constant refrain from the Trump faithful. These people confuse stream-of-consciousness, all-id, word vomiting for truth.

Trump is the biggest, the hugest, nobody's ever been this huge. He's the richest, he gets standing ovations from the many thousands (more than will actually fit in the room) at his rallies, no one's ever seen anything like it, it's unprecedented. And he's rich. He's so rich. Nobody's ever had so much money. There is no better businessman. His show, The Apprentice is unrivaled for ratings, no show is bigger, no show gets better ratings. NBC is so mad he's running for president, because they're begging for another season. His book, The Art of the Deal has been number one longer than any other book, it probably outsells the Bible. God only wishes he had a book so big.

Worse than that, because he has no filter, and engages his mouth before his brain, he often has to shift gears mid-sentence. Somehow, the sound from his mouth filters through that swirl of hair to his ears, and something clicks, sometimes. But only sometimes. And he has to course-correct, or soften the damned fool thing he's just said. That's why, after he called Mexicans murderers and rapists, he tacked on that he assumes some are good people. Which made it sound like some of the murderers and rapists are good people, because of how inartfully he speaks.

Image from source, Washington Post

I can't imagine this man speaking for our country on a national stage. Dubya was bad, but at least he had a team of wranglers and writers and puppeteers pulling his strings. Trump doesn't seem to have that. He's also notoriously thin-skinned, and can let virtually nothing go. He gets into twitter fights over any perceived slight. He's a lot like Sarah Palin in that regard, but rather than paragraphs of word salad, Trump speaks in Twitter-sized chunks. He not only comes off like a bully, but a sore loser, an egotist, an insufferable boor, and an intellectual lightweight.

In his current kerfuffle, Trump made what was essentially a joke that landed with a thud about John McCain's war service. He tried to course-correct in his follow-up sentences, but the damage was done. He refused to apologize, doubled down on what he said, then finally tried to spin his stance by claiming he was saluting the people who were not captured, as though they're unfairly maligned! It's as preposterous as it is transparent. But Trump is "too much." He's so too much, that the media has too much to comment on, and this simple fact gets overlooked: he's a bullshit artist. He's not a truth-teller, he's not a straight-shooter, he's a bullshit artist.

Look no further than that tangle of hair swirled around the top of the gourd he calls a head.

[Excerpt]The Republican poll nightmare that is Donald Trump, in four chartsTen days ago, we raised an important point. People referring to Donald Trump as the Republican front-runner ignored that his leads, where they existed, were within the margin of error. Meaning that he was among the leaders, but he wasn't the clear leader.
In this crazy election, ten days is a long time.
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